awej 5 no.4 full issue 2014

AWEJ Volume.5 Number.4, 2014Saadallah Wannous: From Existentialist to ActivistAl-KhateebMike Orrdevoted toward blurring the political meaning of events, or even that events have apolitical meaning. (p. 22)Much of that blurring Kushner speaks of occurs at the beginning of Wannous‘ play, as peopleascribe the incident to other reasons such as the child being ―unlucky‖ as described by Woman1,or on account of fate, an idea confirmed by Man 5, who upon hearing the character of a little girl,introduced as simply ―Girl,‖ objecting to putting a child in a large coffin, says: ―there are coffinsfor old and young‖ (p. 536, 437). Furthermore, the incident at that stage is described as ―atragedy‖ (436) by Man 2, a description that, according to Kushner, undermines the crime,inviting tears instead of rage, the latter being the sensible reaction to a crime. Kushner states:―‗tragic,‘ like ‗natural,‘ is one of those rhetorical dead ends that stops the mind from reaching tothe full awfulness and criminality of an event. The correct response to tragedy is tears, not rage‖(p. 22). Wannous does not allow the tragic to take over, for very quickly and following the verbaldemur above, ending with a comparison between the king‘s love for his elephant and thepeople‘s love for their children, the character of Zakaria makes its first appearance.Zakaria is the only named character in the play. With his debut, the personal immediatelyshifts to the political. He addresses the people despite their ―fear and alarm‖ with the personal intheir life that is truly only political: ―don‘t we have enough troubles already? Poverty, misery-‖(p. 438). To that, the people start to account for all the misery in their lives:Man 11: Injustice. Forced labor.Man 2: God knows –Zakaria: Disease.Man 12: Hunger.Zakaria: Taxes beyond what we even earn.Man 5: God knows!Man 7: You could go on for ever about the things we have to put up with.Zakaria: And now, on top of everything, comes the elephant. (p. 438)It becomes evident to the characters, at this point, that the systematic decline of their life is nocoincidence as they start to relate certain ―tragedies‖ to their origins as crimes. As a socialist,Wannous makes use of people‘s expressions of faith in the play to demonstrate theirabandonment by God and thus their dire need to look after themselves. The many unansweredpleadings for God‘s mercy and forgiveness are also reminiscent of Wannous‘ existentialapproach which is made evident in Zakaria‘s conversation with the people:Man 5: Patience is the gateway to salvationZakaria: But how much longer can we be patient?Voices (mingled, one after the other): Until God sends us His mercy.Zakaria: We‘ll be dead before that comes. We‘ve had enough of poverty.…Voices: Lord forgive us! God‘s will be done. Eyes see what hands can‘t reach. Leave it toGod, the most compassionate and merciful.Zakaria: No! – It‘s past endurance now.Man 3: Past endurance or not, what can we do?Zakaria: Act. (p. 440)Wannous‘ existentialist inclination is shown here through the lines of Zakaria, as he points outGod‘s abandonment of people: ―we‘ll be dead before that comes,‖ highlighting the collaborationbetween the political and religious institutions in building up people‘s miseries. ―It‘s pastendurance now‖ declares Zakaria, announcing an alteration in Wannous‘ dramatic approach. It isArab World English JournalISSN: 2229-9327www.awej.org393